Bluebird's Nest

Ikea 3 stage bed

Around the time that the wee babe turned 2 we transitioned her into the teenager’s big girl bed. I had many reservations around this. The main one being: how many times a night is she going to get out of the bed and annoy us.

Here’s what happened.

We set the bed up in her bedroom AND kept the crib up in her room too for a week. Her room is tiny so this left it very cramped.

During that week, I got some books out from the library about kids sleeping in big beds now. We talked about the bed and every night we gave the option for her to sleep in either her crib or the big bed.  The first couple of nights she slept in her crib. Then she said she wanted to sleep in the big girl bed! Success! Something we didn’t anticipate was the fact that she would want her stuffies to sleep in the crib and not with her.

In the beginning she didn’t really realize that she could get out of the bed. But that didn’t take long  for her to figure out.

There were two bonuses to having this bed.

1. You could get in the bed with her and read her a story. And fall asleep for a bit with her. (Also a downfall. More on this later.)
2. She can get out in the morning and come to your room to snuggle. (You don’t have to get out of your bed to get a crying baby).

Of course the obvious happens: she gets out of bed in the middle of the night. Not very night, but some nights. And sometimes multiple times stating “I told”. Translation: “I’m cold”. We just take her back to her room and climb back in bed with her until she falls asleep.

Some tips that we’ve had to learn the hard way:

1. Don’t fall asleep with her and stay with her until she falls asleep. We’re now stuck in this trap and if we were to leave before she’s asleep it would be a war of her not staying in bed for probably 2 hours until she’s so exhausted she’ll fall asleep. We’ll have to do this soon, but I’m going to put aside a weekend or so to get ‘er done..
2. Don’t make the room pitch black. Then when they wake up in the middle of the night and cant see anything, they scream bloody murder until you come and get them.
3. Our bed has sides so you might want to invest in sides for a bed. Ours cruises around the bed all night long sometimes fully inverted.

After 6 months almost, we have no qualms about our transition to the big girl bed.

As for when the right time to do this is? The perfect time for your child and you to be ready.

You’ll know when that is

Have you transitioned your child to a big kid bed? What was your experience? If not, what are your concerns? Do you have any other tips?

For the third year in a row, the teenager made it to the concours d’art oratoire! Felicitations JJ! It was a nice change as we left the wee babe at home with Mamu this year. We missed her but it was a nice opportunity to focus on just JJ.

The Competition was stiff this year in the Francophone 8 category. Last year we almost knew that she had killed it. This year we were a lot more uncertain.

And it wasn’t because she was worse. Oh no. This year everyone brought their game! And our suspicions were validated. She didn’t place. But that’s ok because you can’t win them all. And we got to watch the Francophone 9′s as well so that helped to see what kind of game she’s going to need to bring next year.

I asked her if she is planning on doing it next year and I got a resounding “yes!” So she’s not discouraged which is exactly what I had hoped.

And of course we’re very proud of our (not so) little girl. Great work and bon courage sweet pea. Xox

A couple of people have asked me “how did you find childcare?” and “how did you know that childcare was going to treat your baby well?”. This blog post will hopefully answer some of these questions.

Research first

The first thing I did was research. You want to know about the ins and outs of licensed vs unlicensed. Unlicensed usually means that they have less kids to look after, it’s home based and it can be cheaper. If you go with unlicensed, you want to ensure that their daycare is safe, clean and well maintained.

If you go with licensed, you will have the peace of mind that the daycare will have at bare minimum a yearly inspection and the daycare is required to meet certain criteria. These establishments can be in the home or in a facility. They generally will have more kids per adult.

Ask for references in all cases whether it’s licensed or not.

More info on choosing childcare here. 

Where do I look for daycares?

You could look online (I didn’t find very many websites out there for daycares in Victoria – a possible market for daycare websites?). Or go to Usedvictoria.com. I heard that some people have had good success with usedvic, but we didn’t go this route.

I went straight to CCRR. Their mission “Victoria Child Care Resource and Referral, in partnership with the community, strives to enhance the availability and accessibility of a range of quality child care options and services to meet the needs of children, families, and child care providers.”

Here you can fill out a free online form to request all the different types of childcare that are located in Great Victoria. I believe there is also something similar for different parts of Vancouver Island.

Once you fill in the form, you will receive an email back quite quickly giving you a list of all the childcare that is in the areas you specified. And a bunch of helpful information on how to determine good daycares. All free.

Within that information you will find a lot of info pertaining to each daycare: contact info, address, hours, license type, price, what kinds of activities the children do on a typical day, training from the provider, availability, and sometimes the provider will write a small helpful write up on a day in the life at the facility. Keep in mind this info might not be completely up to date.

What do I do next?

Critique all the daycares that were sent to you. Do they watch TV? Do they have ECE training (Early Childhood Education Training), is that important to you? Do they do training to keep their skills up? Do they do a fair amount of activities, crafts, music, dance, etc…? Do they go outside? Do they do out trips?

Narrow down your search and then you must phone them. This is the most daunting part. And if you think about it, daycares during the day are usually busy tending to children, so they most likely won’t answer the phone. LEAVE A MESSAGE. Record on your sheet those that you left a message for, so you can go back later and call them again if they didn’t get back to you. It could take them several days to get back to you. Don’t get discouraged.

Ask them some questions as outlined on this document. Ask them if they have space, and if they don’t, GET ON THEIR WAITLIST if they have one. There’s no harm. The worst that’s going to happen is they are going to call you back and you already have childcare by that time and then you say “no thank you”.

Don’t be alarmed if they ask if your child is a boy or a girl. Some daycares want to have a good mix of the different genders. This is allowed.

Viewing the daycare

If they do have space, arrange to view their establishment. Take this checklist with you. You’ll want to prepare for two visits. One when there are children present to see how the provider works with the children. And then one when there are no children present (usually after hours) when you would fill in the paperwork.

Do not skip this step of viewing the establishment! I can tell you we went and viewed a licensed daycare which was located in a coop after hours. The provider looked like she hadn’t had a shower for a week. The space where the kids played was their living room on couches from the 60s. Downstairs there was a concrete play area with no windows. There was a school across the street but her backyard was only dirt and so very small. We hightailed it out of there after only about 15mins.

I was very surprised that this place passed a licensed daycare!

When you’re at the daycare you want to come prepared to ask a lot of questions. I used this sheet for the questions. Don’t worry, the provider is used to it. And by the way, the provider is also sizing you up at the same time to ensure your family is a good fit for the daycare. Best behaviour y’all!

TIP: Bring your child when he/she is fully rested and fed.

Decision time

So you’ve got all this information now gathered, you’re nervous about going back to work, leaving your baby, and now you have to make a really hard decision. Which daycare do you go with (hopefully there are a couple to chose from).

The best course at this point is to call Daycare Licensing (if you’ve chosen a licensed daycare) – 250-519-3401. This is another bonus for choosing a licensed daycare. When you call them, you can let them know that you have a few daycares you would like some more info on. They usually will put you through to the licensing officer for each daycare. This officer can then go through with you the different visits they have made, how attentive the provider has been to making fixes (if needed), and the best part is they can tell you if the establishment has had any issues. Now, for privacy reasons they can’t tell you what issues they have had. One of the drawbacks though is that if the daycare has had an issue (lets say a neighbour calls in to say that the daycare is too loud), this will show up as an issue and the licensing officer can’t tell you what the issue is so it leaves you with a sense of, is this place really ok?

I can tell you from my experience that, the place we ended up putting our wee babe was a licensed place with zero issues.

I can also tell you that I had called for 3 other places and one of the places was pretty terrible (not my coop nightmare, I didn’t even call for that one).

Lastly, make sure you call those references! I’m sure they all are going to make glowing recommendations of the daycare but it’s great to finally get a first hand recommendation. Then you get to hear how loving, kind, gentle, and fun the provider is! Almost the best part of the process IMHO.

Next steps

Let the daycare know that you’ve chosen them (and let the other daycares know you didn’t chose them) and fill in the necessary paperwork and deposit.

Start your little bean on a gradual entrance to the daycare to get them warmed up (this is also for your separation anxiety too!!). The daycare is more than likely very used to new children and new parents leaving their children so they should be very accommodating and understanding.

Final thoughts…

Finding daycare is probably one of the most difficult, emotional things a parent can go through with many ups and downs (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have shed some tears through this experience. At one point we had everything all lined up, just needed to go sign the paperwork and then the daycare provider called me to say she was having health issues and might have to shut the daycare down. I had to start my search all over again from the beginning! So frustrating.). I’d chalk it up to planning a wedding! It’s not easy. It’s time consuming. There are set backs. But in the end if you do all the leg work, you will find yourself with a wonderful daycare, perfect for you and your child.

There is a tonne of good information located here that helped me immensely. Don’t skip reading all of it.

Good luck! You’re going to find the perfect place.

Side note

If anyone is interested in starting a side business with me on doing all this leg work for parents (save for visiting the facilities), let me know. I’ve always thought that this would be the perfect business to get going as it just takes so much time to do all the research! Imagine if you as a parent could just pay someone to look for all the daycares, set up appointments for you to go and visit, call the licensing, call references if you really didn’t want to do that, all for a small fee. How wonderful would that be!!

It’s a bitter sweet milestone we’re passing today. I’m thrilled to be welcoming my wee babe into her 3rd year (2nd birthday) but it also means that she’s not a baby anymore. But she’ll always be MY baby.

I’ve put together a highlight of things she’s done throughout the last year taken most from my iPhone.

I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Ok, I’ll admit it – I haven’t blogged in AGES. But I’m feeling inspired to put together what happened for us this year in photos as I did last year.

Robin at Farewell Stranger has inspired me yet again to sweep away the bloggy cob webs and start anew. Nothing like trying to win a contest while you’re at it.

January

We came home from Switzerland after being gone for one month across Canada and then 5 months in Switzerland. My baby turned one, back to work for me, a new daycare for the wee babe, half way through grade 7 for the tweenager, and a new job for the hubby.

First steps are always really cool (and I shed a tear) so I think that this will be my memory for January.

February

February is a big month for birthdays in my family – mine included. My highlight was the Murdery/Mystery party my husband threw for me. It was flapper themed and so damn cool!

I don’t really like the photos of me that were taken so I’m going to post one of the two handsome blokes from the party. The guy on the left is mine. Hands off ladies.

March

March we were settled back into life around here. And the drab drab weather that the Wet Coast is here. When looking back on the photos I took in March, I found one wonderful day that I took some photos of my girls around Easter. This photo makes me smile.

April

Once again my tween competed in the Concours d’art oratoire and this time she won it in her age group! Definitely the highlight of my month.

May

We can’t have mind blowing things happen to us every month. So this month we just began to enjoy outside a little more and partake in welcoming in Spring.

June

I started a new job. I was freaked out, excited, nervous, elated, joyous, and thinking I was downright loco. A little like a new born goat. We visited goats during this month, so this photo is appropriate.

July

Two largish things happened in July so I can’t just post one photo.

My 20 year grad reunion happened. I got pretty drunk at the dinner cuz that’s what you’re supposed to do at a grad reunion party right? (sshhhh… don’t tell anyone) and then the next day we had a big family BBQ at Beckwith Park. I don’t look a day over 17 if I do say so myself.

AND… my in-laws and my husband’s aunt and uncle came from France and Switzerland. We ventured to Parksville where the weather was crap. The stayed for only 10 short days… I hope they stay longer next time.

August

In August we travelled down to the States to visit with all of our cousins. After a cold trip to Parksville, it was beyond hot in Seattle. But we had a great time visiting all our family down south.

September

In September I was bound and determined to get my baby on the front cover of Island Parent by winning the baby contest at the baby fair. Unfortunately, she didn’t win but don’t you think this is the cutest pic ever and that she should have won? We’re just waiting for someone to “find” her and make her famous. She’s not just a pretty face people. She knows two languages. Any day now….

October

In October we headed to Pender Island for a get away. Another rainy get away. Oh well, we had a great time. We also headed to the pumpkin patch to take some anual photos with the fall colours. I couldn’t resist putting in two family shots for this month. The first is a photo on the Pender Island Disk Golf Course.

November

At the tail end of October was my hubby’s birthday and at the very beginning of November the Tweenager turned into a teen. I can hardly believe my once little sweet pea is now moving into her next stage. I love this photo.

December

Welcome to the end of the year. We took some nice photos of the girls but I’ll put the Christmas card photo of the teenager in here as I just love the colours of her hat. Joyeux Noel and Bon Annee tout le monde!

The other day, Robin at Farewell Stranger, posted a topic about Facebook and the thoughts and feelings she had associated with it. She was wondering how it would be when her son grew up to one day “get on FB”.

After I started writing out all of the experiences I’ve had with my tweenager getting on Facebook, I realized that I might actually have some information that might help people searching for ideas on what to do with tweens who want to get on FB. Big disclaimer: I’m no expert. I simply have experience here.

First of all, it must be said that my tweenager is just that: a tweenager. I know a lot of you out there are probably wondering how the heck I would let someone who is below the “legal age limit” to join Facebook. If you’re following my blog, you are aware of the huge journey we went on last year over to Switzerland for 5 months. At the end of that trip, we felt Facebook was the perfect way for her to keep in touch with her friends that she had made over there. I would no way condone getting Facebook before the age of 13 unless those events had happened.

And now onto my top 11 pieces of advice for someone thinking about letting their young adult on Facebook:

1. We had a big serious conversation with her before she signed up about things she can and can’t post, FB behaviors, and general etiquette (hello chain mail). Something for her to sign would have been great for reference later (a Facebook contract).
2. We’ve definitely helicopter parented by being friends with her. But that was one of the stipulations to getting an account.
3. Computer in the living room doesn’t matter anymore… kids nowadays have iPods/phones that connect to FB – easily.
4. Make sure they understand that if they think that school is challenging to navigate, FB just adds another complicated layer.
5. Explain that their behavior on FB is now recorded for all to see forever! So any prospective employers might be able to see your adoration of One Direction.
6. Go through the privacy settings TOGETHER.
7. Have a pseudonym for your tween. Hans Solo or Princess Leia will do just fine.
8. Since their profile photo is never hidden on FB (all the world can see it) have their face blocked or ‘creatively captured’ so it’s not so obvious who it is. Make this a rule to using FB.
9. There’s a lot of crap out there that tweens adore. “Fill this questionaire out on the top 100 things about you (hair colour, eye colour, etc… ) and guess what? Now, everyone knows EVERYTHING about you!” Yeah, don’t fill that crap out. You’re just giving away all your personal information if you do that.
10. What was given can be taken away if used improperly.
11. Above all, keep lines of communication open and monitor!

Ok, so this is going to be a bit of a rant. Just thought I should warn you.

Let me start off my saying, I love Ikea. Adore Ikea. Want to have little Ikea babies. Ok, that last statement was probably overdoing it but you get the point.

So when we went to the Concours for the tweenager, I absolutely couldn’t pass up going to Ikea since the new Ikea in Richmond, Vancouver was only a week old!

We arrived at the new Ikea (directly across the parking lot from the old Ikea). We walked in. Let me paint a picture: many many Ikea workers milling around the entrance and the escalator that is front and centre, willing you and directing you to go upstairs and enjoy the wonders of the display areas. Ummmm… no thanks. I just want to get into the bread and butter area where I can pick and choose what I want to purchase thank-you-very-much. And where might said area be? I’m glad you asked.

Rant #1: So we ask one of the 45 staff members trying to usher us upstairs and they point to a set of doors under the escalator that says something to the effect of “Entrance only. No Exit. Keep closed.” Awfully welcoming wouldn’t you say? The hubby swears that the person pointed in a different direction so after we take about 50 steps the way he thinks we realize it’s not that way so we ask another staff member. They point again to the unwelcoming double doors. But why ever would we want to go through there when there’s the wonderful display area on the top floor? So we walk back over to these doors wondering if it could be the way. It’s so not what I was thinking when I’m thinking I’m about to walk into the shopping area. This must be for employees only? So I ask again… where is the shopping area? Through the doors they say… ok, I’ll bite and go through… and once I do, there it is. I only wish I could have taken a photo of these doors! They really didn’t seem like what you would think they should look like when you’re trying to get to the shopping area!

Around we go through the maze. Same old maze, different store.

We finally get to the end when we realize that we haven’t hit the baby/kid area. So I ask one of the employees where is it?

Rant #2: “You have to go upstairs” she says. So I can’t get out of going upstairs. Ugh… “And how do we get upstairs with a buggie” I ask. “Through the elevators in the entrance” she replies. We make out way over to the elevators. While we’re waiting for them to come, the tween realizes that the elevators she directed us to are only down elevators!! No kidding. Um, are you new or something? Over to the UP elevators (right beside the lame doors I might add) and up we go to the kids area.

After we’re done that, we head back down to the checkout. We line up in a checkout with it’s light on. I start unloading our cart, the wee babe has had about enough of Ikea so she’s beginning to be a menace. Not enough sleep either. After I’ve loaded up half of the belt, I wait for the cashier to make it move along so I can load up the rest of it.

Rant #3: I wait and I wait. She’s chatting with another cashier and it seems that their trying to figure out the customer before me’s bill. Their laughing and carrying on. A jolly old time. After about 5 minutes of this I ask “could you please advance the belt ahead so I can put on the rest of my stuff?” the cashier’s reply is “this till is broken, you’ll have to move to an other one.” Say what? Are you kidding me? So I say “You couldn’t have told me that 5 minutes ago before I loaded up my stuff on your till????” NO answer from the cashier.

As I’m leaving and steams coming out of my ears, I say, “It’s probably a good idea to turn your light off!”

I’m not even kidding you, that really happened.

So now I’m torn. As I’ve said, I adore Ikea’s items but that trip just left the most sour taste in my mouth (my hubby is clapping his hands right now I’m sure).

Have you ever had a terrible experience in a store that you adore? Can you continue to spread the love even after a bad experience or are they BANNED now?

You read that right. I’ve got a new job!

Ok, so you might wonder, what is my old job? I am a Web Analyst (I always think it’s funny that the word anal is in my job title), and I look after one very important internal Drupal based intranet for 30,000 employees. I adore the team I’m on and my boss and I are pretty much inseparable when it comes to work. She’s my ying, I’m her yang. Bread and butter. Salt and pepper. You get the idea. So I’m going to miss her like crazy.

Why would I leave said job you might ask?

For a long long long time, ever since I took said job, I have been wanting staff. (People to learn from, to motivate and grow with, to support and encourage. I also want to branch out and see other parts of our organization.) Not from a corporate position (like where I am now) but more ministerial, more granular as they say in our lingo.

The time has come. I’m nervous, excited, stoked, scared, joyful, overwhelmed, and looking forward to what the future has to hold. I feel like a new kid on the first day of school knowing a handful of people.

Some people have already told me that I have a big role to fill and a big job ahead of me. Some people have told me that they are looking to me for the experience and knowledge that I will bring. I guess that makes me feel wanted. The peeps back in my old stomping ground tell me that there will be big shoes to fill when I leave. So does big shoes equal, big job ahead of me?

I’m hoping so.

Have you ever left the comfort of your job to branch out and try something new? Have you followed your dreams to the point of scaredom? Do you wonder what your professional future holds?

For my birthday my mom gave me some new lenses… for my iPhone! Can you believe that you can throw on a lens on an iPhone with a magnet? Well, you can.

I took a few photos but I especially liked this one that used my fisheye lens and followed the theme of one of my favourite photography blogs: lines.

Peekaboo!

This blog post was inspired by You Capture | Lines

All photos taken by myself, Robin Howe, and copyright 2012 by Robin Howe.

As I wrote about in this post, the tweenager made it to the provincial level for competing in the Concours d’art oratoire on Saturday.

We had a huge day. We awoke at 5:10am and were out the door by 6. Onto the 7am we went and hit the buffet. Delish! Thanks mom for springing for this. Off the ferry and first stop was the new Ikea. It looks way more massive than the original Ikea but once you get inside, it’s really just a maze isn’t it? I’m going to write about my trip as it definitely wasn’t as stellar as I had expected but I’m not going to taint this blog post with my unhappiness.

After that visit, we were off to SFU at the campus in Surrey. I adore this campus. The architecture, the mall underneath the university, the ambiance… it’s wonderful.

Cool lost and found!

SFU architecture

SFU architecture

We had a couple of hours to kill so we grabbed a drink and the tweenager and my hubby hit the mall while myself, the wee babe and my mom hung around in the main area.

The wee babe had had a nap on the way to Ikea but it was really only a half hour so she was a bit owly but FULL of steam. She didn’t stop moving except to eat and sleep. Seriously.

Getting ready for opening ceremonies

The opening ceremonies started at 1:30pm and then we were released to our rooms. One of the students that competed with the tweenager was there last year too. We all took a seat (except for the wee babe and my hubby who was pushing her around in the stroller trying to get her to fall asleep so he could bring her into the room and watch the tween’s speech).

My big girl was #5. After 2 people had gone, my hubby returned with a sleeping baby. As the competitors went up one by one, I couldn’t help feeling a little more and more nervous for my tween. Eventually, it was her turn. She killed it! All the practice, blood, sweat and tears paid off. There was only one moment where she forgot where she was in the speech but other than that, it was perfectly presented. Nice and slow, a beautiful accent and confidently delivered.

The competitors

Shortly after that, it was finished and not a moment too soon. The wee babe promptly woke up the exact moment we were released from the room.

Then we had an hour to wait and figure out amongst the other presenters if our girl had a fighting chance at winning. We were sure that she would place within the top 3 and even confident that she could bring us back the gold medal.

Waiting...

Around 4:10 the start the awards ceremonies commenced. First grade 6 (luckily we didn’t have long to wait to find out!). Then grade 7. 3rd place went to Ryan on “Is there life out there with us in the solar system?” The anticipation builds. 2nd place goes to Alexander on “The Northern Gateway Project”. We begin to squirm… is it going to be her? And then “First place goes to ‘the tweenager’ for “Mon adventure en Suisse”"!! Yaaa whooooo!!!! Up she goes to receive her medal, get a photo and receive her envelope filled with $50!!

First place winner in 7th grade francophone category!

And so that’s it. She’s done it! We’re over the moon with pride, she’s smiling from ear to ear and all that work, and dedication has paid off big time!

Once it’s over, we head back to the ferry and catch the 7pm home. It’s been a looooong day, but so so so worth every minute of it. We celebrate as best as we can on the ferry, congratulating over and over again. We’re all so incredibly proud of our little girl.

I look forward to what next year has to hold.

Good job my tweenager.

Proud girl!